Chaves Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CARES)

Frequency Agility Exercise -- Report

The Chaves Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CARES) held a “frequency agility” exercise from 1230 until 1323 MST on Saturday, 20 November 2004.

The purpose of this exercise was:

(1) Practice gracefully moving a net from one repeater to another

(2) Verify the geographic coverage and proper operation of our various repeaters

(3) Test usefulness of HF frequencies at “high noon”

(3) Test the usefulness of EchoLink to connect a Roswell 2-meter station to the Alamogordo 70-cm repeater (K5MJ-R).

Here is what we did including results:

(1) Roll call on the Caprock repeater —12 Roswell and 1 Hobbs ham responded

(2) Move to the Buck Mtn. repeater and call roll -- 14 Roswell hams responded

(3) Move to the Capitan Mtn. repeater and call roll -- 13 Roswell, 1 San Patricio, 1 Rio Rancho, and 1 Alamogordo ham responded

(4) Move to the PVARC Roswell repeater — 15 Roswell hams responded

(5) Selected hams moved to EchoLink and linked to Alamogordo (while the rest of the hams moved to the HF bands) -- 4 Roswell and 1 Alamogordo ham responded to the EchoLink call

(6) Move to 75-meters 3939 kHz -- 9 Roswell, 1 San Patricio, 1 Rio Rancho and 1 Alamogordo ham responded

(7) Move to 40-meters (7236.5 kHz) —9 Roswell, 1 San Patricio, 1 Rio Rancho, 1 Alamogordo, and 1 Hobbs ham responded

The conclusions are:

(1) The turnout of fifteen Roswell hams was good -- especially considering several “regulars” had already left for the Thanksgiving holidays or were working. The four out-of-county hams were a welcome addition to the group.

(2) It was especially good to establish alternate methods of communication with the Section Emergency Coordinator in Rio Rancho, who has good communication with the New Mexico State EOC.

(3) The group did an excellent job of quickly moving from repeater to repeater when there was a simulated failure of the current repeater. Likewise the move to HF bands went smoothly as did the move of a small group of hams to EchoLink

(4) With the exception of the Buck Mtn. Repeater, the equipment performance was excellent. The Buck Mtn. repeater, which is linked to Mt. Taylor in northern NM, was not satisfactory for reliable passing of traffic at the time of the exercise. Several Roswell hams “reversed frequency” on their transceivers to permit direct communication. An hour later Buck was operating satisfactorily, although a test to northern NM via Mt. Taylor was not made at that later time.

(5) The 75-meter HF band was good for communication in and around Roswell, but was poor to northern NM. This is not surprising since 75-meters is usually regarded as a “night time” band.

(6) The 40-meter HF band was excellent, both locally and to northern NM as well as to Hobbs, San Patricio, and Alamogordo. (Although not tested, it would probably have worked for most of NM.)

(7) The CARES Group has a number of alternate methods of communicating, should failures occur.

(8) The group has the necessary technical skills to use these alternate methods.